Raphael Bousso: The Black Hole Paradox, Quantum Gravity, and the Holographic Principle

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Raphael Bousso is the Chancellor’s Chair in Physics at the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics, where he leads the Bousso Group in research on quantum gravity and quantum information. He is a renowned string theorist famous also for his development of the string theoretic landscape and the Bousso bound in holography. In this episode, Robinson and Raphael discuss the groundbreaking work of Jacob Bekenstein, Stephen Hawking, Leonard Susskind, Gerard ’t Hooft, and others on the black hole information paradox. They then turn to how this led to the formulation of the holographic principle, which has had profound implications for research on quantum gravity, especially for Raphael himself, who has recently been working on quantum information theory, quantum communication, and other ways in which classical gravity “knows about” and encodes its own quantum states. 

The Bousso Group: ⁠https://lightsheet.berkeley.edu⁠

OUTLINE
00:00 Introduction
04:14 Working with Leonard Susskind and Stephen Hawking
19:11 Do Black Holes have a Temperature?
27:32 The Black Hole Information Paradox
41:31 Do Black Holes Mean Quantum Mechanics Must be Thrown Out?
54:09 What Is Quantum Gravity?
01:01:15 Why is Quantum Gravity a Low Energy Problem?
1:11:12 On String Theory and Holography
01:16:00 What Are Bousso Bounds?
01:22:58 Is Gravity a Quantum Error-Correcting Code?
01:32:09 Is Gravity a Fundamental Force? 
01:37:25 On String Theory and the Multiverse

Robinson’s Website: ⁠http://robinsonerhardt.com⁠

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, and everyone in-between.